pening within, and
that it was not all prayer, neither mourning. A few of the more
reverent uncovered their heads at intervals; but it would be idle to
deny that there was a feeling that Little Rathie's daughter was
favouring Tammas and others somewhat invidiously. Indeed, Robbie
Gibruth did not scruple to remark that she had made "an inauspeecious
beginning." Tammas Haggart, who was melancholy when not sarcastic,
though he brightened up wonderfully at funerals, reminded Robbie that
disappointment is the lot of man on his earthly pilgrimage; but Haggart
knew who were to be invited back after the burial to the farm, and was
inclined to make much of his position. The secret would doubtless have
been wormed from him had not public attention been directed into
another channel. A prayer was certainly being offered up inside; but
the voice was not the voice of the minister.

Lang Tammas told me afterwards that it had seemed at one time "very
questionable" whether Little Rathie would be buried that day at all.
The incomprehensible absence of Mr. Dishart (afterwards satisfactorily
explained) had raised the unexpected question of the legality of a
burial in a case where the minister had not prayed over the "corp."
There had even been an indulgence in hot words, and the Reverend
Alexander Kewans, a "stickit minister," but not of the Auld Licht
persuasion, had withdrawn in dudgeon on hearing Tammas asked to conduct
the ceremony instead of himself. But, great as Tammas was on religious
questions, a pillar of the Auld Licht kirk, the Shorter Catechism at
his finger-ends, a sad want of words at the very time when he needed
them most, incapacitated him for prayer in public, and it was
providential that Bowie proved himself a man of parts. But Tammas
tells me that the wright grossly abused his position, by praying at
such length that Craigiebuckle fell asleep, and the mistress had to
rise and hang the pot on the fire higher up the joist, lest its
contents should burn before the return from the funeral. Loury grew
the sky, and more and more anxious the face of Little Rathie's
daughter, and still Bowie prayed on. Had it not been for the
impatience of the precentor and the grumbling of the mourners outside,
there is no saying when the remains would have been lifted through the
"bole," or little window.

Hearses had hardly come in at this time and the coffin was carried by
the mourners on long stakes. The straggling procession